Posts Tagged ‘train’

Car Hit By Express Train

Video evidence of the horrible damage an express train can inflict on a car that does not move out of its way:

[The event shown in the video occurred yesterday on the JR Kagoshima Line in Fukuoka Prefecture. The 73-year-old driver of the car was unable to flee before the train arrived and was killed.]

Japanese Police Officer Pushed in Front of Train, 2 Chinese Men Arrested

Ugly news out of Tokyo:

A police officer was hit by a train at Ochanomizu station in Tokyo last night, after being pushed down onto the tracks by 2 Chinese men. Apparently there was some shouting between the officer and men, starting a scuffle that ended in the officer falling off the platform and being hit by an oncoming train. The collision severed one of the officer’s legs and left him with other serious injuries. At the time of this posting, the officer was still in critical condition.

The Chinese men, who will likely be charged with attempted murder, have claimed that they had no intention of pushing the officer onto the tracks.

Wheelchair-bound Man Killed by Express Train

Watching the news, it seems like suicides by train are pretty frequent in Japan. However, few of those who jump in front of trains are wheelchair-bound:

A wheelchair-bound man was killed when he plunged off a station platform here onto railway tracks and was run over by an express train, police said.

Police are investigating whether the man in an electric wheelchair accidentally fell onto the tracks or committed suicide. None of the approximate 100 passengers on the train was injured.

A man believed to be a 61-year-old resident of Nagoya’s Minami-ku was fatally run over by a Nagoya Railroad limited express train at Shibata Station on the Tokoname Line at around 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Train services were suspended for about an hour between Otagawa and Jingu-mae stations on the line after the accident, inconveniencing about 15,000 passengers.

Film from a camera at unmanned Shibata Station showed that the man had been waiting on the platform from about an hour before the accident. Just before the train passed, he plunged onto the tracks and into the path of the train.

It’s not known whether this was definitely a suicide, but the descriptions of the man aimlessly going back and forth along the platform sound like pretty common pre-suicide behavior. Police are questioning his family about possible suicide motives.

Video Report by Yamanote Halloween Train Supporter

David “Samurai Dave” Weber, who has participated in the Yamanote Halloween Train since 2005, has posted this video report to Japunit:

The video seems to be made up of clips from the 2006 party:

I have more commentary from myself and from participants including one who confirms the existence of the Halloween Train event going back to 1990. It also contains a brief message to a pair of Tokyo-living Wikipedia users who last year did everything they could to get an article on the event deleted because they never heard of it.Also for some of the critics who decry the event as just crazy gaijin taking over the train, you’ll note that nearly half the people in this video are Japanese.

At around the 6-minute mark of the video, we are shown how Japanese passengers reacted to the party. I believe the word “terrified” was used.